Colorado’s House Bill 12-1116 – Timeshare Resales

Rushing to calm down upset timeshare owners, Colorado is preparing to enact a new law that is supposed to protect timeshare owners from being scammed out of their money.

There is a good reason for concern about timeshare resale scams. Thousands of timeshare owners have lost their money to a promise their timeshare was already sold. Here is some of the timeshare law: “First, the bill makes it a deceptive trade practice for a “timeshare resale entity” to misrepresent the existence of buyers for a timeshare interest, the value of the interest, projected future costs of owning the interest and the terms and conditions upon which timeshare resale services will be provided.

House Bill 12-1116 then goes on to require timeshare resale entities to use written contracts providing important information about what the resale entity will do to earn its fee, the amount of that fee, how a resale will be documented and what costs the customer will be required to pay. The contract must state that the timeshare resale entity is not entitled to compensation until it provides its customer with a copy of a deed or equivalent document evidencing the transfer of ownership of the customer’s interest and a written acknowledgement from the owners’ association that a transfer of ownership has in fact been completed. The contract must contain a statement that the timeshare resale entity will use “commercially reasonable good faith efforts” to effect a transfer of ownership within 180 days; remind the customer that timeshare assessments will continue to accrue until a transfer of ownership is completed; and notify the customer that the customer has a five-day right to rescind the contract.”